


Anxious Musings

by ohshitwhatthefuck



Series: Husbandos [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: (Elements of/In the first chapter) Sadstuck, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 06:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/512310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohshitwhatthefuck/pseuds/ohshitwhatthefuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Dave Strider and holy shit you are about to give yourself an aneurysm you are so nervous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoy marriage proposals and JohnDave sue me.

You have never been more nervous in your twenty-four years of life.

It is the morning of yours and John’s seventh anniversary. It also happens to be the day you have decided to ask for this hand in marriage.

Predictably, you didn’t sleep last night. How could you when your thoughts were screaming at you, playing scenario after scenario of what could happen the next day? Him jumping up in excitement, him smiling patiently, him _rejecting you_ \--

You feel him rustling in bed beside you as he sits up and rubs his eyes sleepily and you’re immediately brought back to reality.

“Morning,” his delicate voice upon waking up still warms your heart a bit, even through the anxiety threatening to burn a hole right through it.

“Morning, babe,” you lean over to kiss his forehead and throw your arm around his torso, awkwardly nuzzling your head into his crotch to hide your uncovered eyes. Of course, he’s seen your abnormally red eyes before, he actually quite fancies them, but he’s also capable of practically reading your thoughts simply by looking at them. And you won’t let him see what you think must look like crazed hysteria in them at the moment. You reach over him to grab your shades on the nightstand, slipping them on and leaving yourself sprawled across his lap.

He giggles a little and you think he mutters something about you looking like a ridiculous octopus of sorts, but you let it slide because now he’s playing with your hair and god, you really love when he does that.

“Hey, you butt, shouldn’t we be getting ready?”

You hum in response, but don’t make any move to get up. You’re quite enjoying his gentle hands stroking your hair and you will lie here as long as you damn well please. John, however, has other plans. Plans that involve pulling himself out from under you, walking over to the kitchen area (ignoring your pleas of “get the fuck back here I’m not done cuddling yet”, and coming back to pour ice cubes down the back of your shirt.

You let out a less than manly utterance and manage to quickly jump up and shimmy the freezing fuckers out of your shirt and onto the wooden floor, but by the time you’re running after John to get your damn revenge, he’s slamming the bathroom door in your face and boasting about how he gets first shower, suck it Dave!!

\-------------------------------------

 The rest of the morning passes much less eventfully: you take your shower after John (careful to trip him on your way to the bathroom) then you both get dressed in jeans and hoodies and sit down to eat breakfast, idly chatting over eggs and bacon about nothing of importance. Your game plan for the day is to start out by simply just fucking around in the park for a few hours, seeing as the main event would take place later tonight, at an expensive dinner with Rose and Jade.

(John was skeptical about inviting them, but you convinced him you needed ~~moral support~~ to share this important day with your closest friends, who had supported your relationship from the very beginning.

When you both finish up with breakfast, you dump the plates in the sink unceremoniously, grab John’s hand, and lead him to the front door. As you open it, you realize it’s fucking freezing outside like holy shit you can feel your balls shriveling already.

(Although you moved out to Washington six years ago for college, you still never truly adjusted to temperatures under 60 degrees.)

You really just want to slam the door shut, rewind back into the house, and create a mini spa in your bathtub, but you just use this chilly weather as an excuse to grab John’s hand and pull it into the front pocket of your hoodie with the both of your own. He rests his head on your shoulder when you do this, and you stay like that as you walk to the park.

You basically just circle the playground a couple of times, cracking occasional jokes and smiling warmly when John doesn’t fail to laugh at every one. At one point, you try to impress John by attempting to swing as high as possible whilst standing on a swing set, but you end up losing balance and plummeting face-first on the pavement below. (He doubles over and cries laughing though, so you decide the throbbing pain and scrapes were worth it.)

Three hours later, you’re starting to feel less like a person and more like a walking ice sculpture. You’re too frozen to be able to make it even the few blocks home, so John drags you over to a nearby Starbucks to warm you up a bit. ( _“John, Starbucks is for hipsters and lonely Asian college students” “Shut the fuck up Dave, I love Starbucks” “My point exactly” “I’m going to piss inside of you”_ )

After you tell the little barista with braids (she has pretty badass eyebrow piercings, you note) that you want two hot chocolates and make it quick I think even my eyeball juice is freezing, you turn around and notice that John is kind of… hanging his head? You ask what’s up, but he shrugs it off, so you do too.

You and John eventually make your way back home to get dolled up for your dinner. You both change into your best suits (see: what you wore to prom six years ago) and you’re practically beaming at him as you help him adjust his dark blue tie. You lean down to peck his lips and he smiles back at you, but it doesn’t quite seem reach his eyes. Again, you ask him if something’s wrong, and again, he tells you you’re just being silly.

The nerves must be getting to you, you think.

So you just drop your forehead onto his shoulder, awkwardly try to find a way to wrap your arms around him at the angle you’re in, and sway him back and forth a little as you grin giddily. As you hear his quiet chuckle and feel his arms find their away around your torso, you mentally berate yourself for all the anxiety you’ve had about asking this man to marry you. If it were anyone else, your thoughts may have been justified, but this is John. Your best friend, your boyfriend of seven years, your soon-to-be life partner. You trust him more than anyone you’ve ever known. You know everything is going to end up okay.

Before you can become a messy sack of emotions and verbalize any of these embarrassing thoughts, John’s untangling himself from your hold and smiling as he leads you toward your car.

It’s going to be fine, Strider. You’ve got this.

\-------------------------------------

You tell the host at the restaurant that you have a reservation for ‘Strider’ (the restaurant’s name is Rover’s and it sounds like some dog’s beauty salon but you researched the most expensive restaurants in Seattle and this shit is legit alright) and he leads you to a table where Rose and Jade have already been seated at. They welcome you with a smirk-smile-grin (from Rose) and a bouncy, happy smile-wave combo (from Jade).

Your fancy as balls five course meal seems to take about five minutes to get through. You haven’t really been paying attention to your food (you couldn’t pronounce much of the menu so you just got whatever fish thing Rose ordered) and suddenly your dessert plates are being whisked away and it’s now or never, Strider. Rose and Jade are talking animatedly about something with John and although you’ve tuned out their words, you can feel them silently cheering you on, and you feel like you can do it too, you really feel like you’re about to fly, you can do this.

Your legs wobble a little as you slide out of your chair, but you manage to turn it into a sort of saunter as you step beside John’s chair. He turns to you with his eyebrows slightly drawn together. You take a deep breath, push your shades up to your head, take the small box out of your back pocket, and slide down to one knee.

He’s facing you fully now, one hand covering his mouth, looking at you with widened deep blue eyes. You thrust the box out toward him and open it with barely suppressed trembling hands. Not with fear, but with excitement. You know now that John’s all you’ve ever wanted, all you’ve ever needed, and you’re just so fucking psyched to spend the rest of your life with him. Adopt some Chinese children along the road and generally be huge domestic homos forever.

You look at him meaningfully as you speak, smirking a little at how he still hasn’t dropped the shell-shocked expression on his face.

“John. I f—… I love you. You… you make me happier than anyone has ever made anyone happy before. When I feel like I can’t breathe anymore, you fill my lungs with air again. You’re my reason to live, you mean the world to me and more. I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else but you. So what do ya say? Will you marry me?”

Could’ve been more creative, but whatever, you did it. You look at him with a half-smile you know he loves and wait for the inevitable answer.

Okay, this is it. This is the part where everything clicks together for him and he jumps out of his seat and pulls you up with him and throws his arms around you, laughing, saying “of course, you big homo douchebag!”.

A few moments passed and he’s still sitting there, face frozen, seemingly undecided with what he should do.

Your expression deadpans. “Egbert, I—”

Before you can even finish your sentence, he’s standing up. You follow suit, ready to take him into your man-bosom of love, when you notice how his expression’s changed.

It’s the same expression he had when you came home, soaking wet, after rushing a dying kitten on the side of the road to the vet and being told it was too late.

Pity.

“No.”

“What, but--" You freeze where you are, lowering your arms as you feel your heart drop.

“Dave, I can’t. I… I’m sorry.”

You try to reach out to him, to demand he explain what the fuck he’s talking about, of course he can. You try, but he backs away from you, frowning, and – fucking hell – he’s _walking away_ and you want to chase after him, beg him to come back, but your legs stop functioning and instead you crumble to the floor.

You vaguely feel Rose’s hand petting your hair a minute later. She’s muttering apologies to you, telling you it’s going to be okay, you can ask John what the hell just happened later. Some bystanders are apologizing as well; Jade’s barking insults at the laughing ones (Who the hell do you think you are, fuckers!? Shut the fuck up!!”).

Your heart feels cold, your head is pounding, your stomach is churning, and oh, yup, those are definitely tears running down your cheeks.

Management sympathetically gives you fifty percent off your meal after witnessing your devastating humiliation.

John isn’t there when you get home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John contemplates what the hell just happened.

Okay, so, that. That definitely just happened.

You might have kind of expected it in the back of your mind all day, but. But then it actually really happened and you sort of… freaked the fuck out and ran away.

Yeah, you are pretty much the royal duke of Fucks-things-overville.

You just sort of panicked, okay! It was sudden and you could see the raw emotions coursing through Dave’s eyes and you were overwhelmed and slightly confused and very dizzy and fuck.

You rushed away with your ears burning and your head hanging, trying not to wince at all the insults bystanders were throwing your way.

You manage to calm down, despite still being a little shaky, as you make your way out of the restaurant and into the chilly night air, trying to gather your thoughts together into some sort of semblance of sense.

You love Dave. This is cold, hard fact. He’s your best friend and you trust him with your life ( _he trusts you with his, but you fucked that up just now_ , you think bitterly). You mentally ask yourself if you would be okay with marrying him. Of fucking course, you answer back matter-of-factly. Then _why_ didn’t you say so earlier? Really, the more you think about this the more you realize you are pretty much just a huge fucking douche.

You aimlessly toddle around nameless streets until you find yourself on Jade’s doorstep half an hour later. She’s not there yet, so you plop down with your back to her door, waiting. You continue to stew in your own self-pity until she shows up from around a corner about an hour later. She freezes where she is when she spots you before proceeding to launch herself at you with a terrifying screeching noise akin to that of a banshee.

You try to shield your head and face with your arms, but Christ, this girl is strong. She’s throwing punches at every area of skin she can meet, screaming “Why!? Why would you do that!? What the fuck was that about??” at you between every one.

“Jade! Will you just. Can you. Calm down!” You stand up and pin her shoulders to the wall, using all the strength you have left in you to contain her thrashing form.

You wait for her to use up all her energy and go limp before speaking.

“I fucked up. I’m a dick. I’m the biggest dick. I’m literally a foot long, five-inch thick, hairy, throbbing dick.” Her face scrunches up, but she doesn’t say anything. “Can we please just talk?”

She glares at you before reluctantly nodding and you release her so she can unlock her door and allow you inside.

Five minutes later, you find yourself sitting across from her in her dimly lit kitchen with a large blanket around your shoulders, two cups of steaming green tea in front of you both.

“Well?” She prompts, her arms crossed and her expression unamused.

“Um. Well. I didn’t mean it?”

“John!” You flinch at her biting tone. “Do you realize what you just did? Dave was in _tears_ when you left. I don’t give a shit if you’re my brother, you better have a good fucking reason for this after making one of my best friends cry!”

Somewhere in her short monologue, she got up and picked up a frying pan, waving it threateningly at you.

You hold up your hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! Just drop the kitchenware and I’ll try to explain.”

She sits again, but she still hasn’t put down the weapon in question, so you choose your next words cautiously.

“I really don’t know what to say, Jade! I was just really overwhelmed and not really thinking and I never wanted to hurt Dave, but like my legs just moved on their own and it was so sudden and I feel terrible and ugh!”

She just stares blankly at you before speaking lowly. “You’ve been dating for seven years…”

“Yes.”

“He’s admitted to being in love with you for the past ten.”

“Yes.”

“You’re both in your mid-twenties.”

“Um. Yes?”

“And you’re trying to tell me that this was all unexpected for you!? John, really, what the hell is wrong with you!”

“I’m sorry, okay! It’s not that I didn’t know this was coming, I just… didn’t know what to do when it finally happened!”

She pinches her nose in exasperation and sighs. “So do you want to.”

“Do I want to what?”

“Do you want to _marry him_ , dipshit!? And I swear to god, if you say you don’t know, I’ll shove this pan up your asshole!”

“Shit, I do, alright! I do…” You look down at your hands in your lap as you trail off. “I just… don’t know if I can fix this anymore.”

You glance up to find that Jade’s looking at you with more concern than murderous intent now, so at least that threat has been eliminated.

“John, sweetie.” She (finally) puts down the frying pan and walks over to your side of the table, rubbing comforting circles on your back. “You’re a moron.”

“Wh--”

She places her index finger over your mouth in a shooshing motion. “No, shh. It’s okay, listen to me. Dave loves you. A lot. He’s not just going to ditch you because you’re stupid. I mean, if he was going to do that, he would’ve left you years ago.” She giggles and you punch her shoulder. “Go ahead you absolute doofus, he’s probably still hoping you’ll turn this around.”

You’re still uncertain, but you smile and nod convincingly at your sister. “Yeah. I got you. I’ll try and fix things right now.” You get up, unwrapping yourself from your blanket cocoon. “Thanks, Jade.”

She gives you a big toothy grin and pulls you into a tight bear hug, painfully slapping your back. “Go get him, tiger.”

She’s crushing your bones and making it extremely hard to breathe, but you manage to get out a choked “Y-yeah” before yanking yourself from her grip and making your way out of her door and into the cold night air once again.

You’re going to need to come up with something good to tell Dave after your embarrassing display earlier. If your heart was racing before, it’s swan diving into a fucking pit of cheese graters now. What if you really just fucked everything up? What if he doesn’t want to see you now? What if you’ve just lost your potential fiancé and the best friend you’ve ever had all in one go? You’re not sure what you would do if that really is the case, so you shake your head in an attempt to get the negative thoughts out.

Talk to Dave now, think shitty thoughts later.

\-------------------------------------

It is one in the morning and you find yourself standing in front of yours and Dave’s shared apartment holding a bouquet of two dozen red roses in one hand and a heart-shaped box of chocolates in the other.

You’re not sure how winning someone back works, but you sure as hell are going to try.

You are going to go through that door and be romantic as fuck. You will not go down without a fight. You are going to do this.

You just need to… knock on that door. You have the key, but wouldn’t it be polite in this situation to just knock? Yeah, so just reach out and tap your knuckles on the wood. But what are you going to say? “Oh hey Dave sorry for freaking out and making you cry earlier of course I’ll marry you” doesn’t sound like it would quite cut it. Should you propose back at him? Just hug him and whisper a string of apologies into his ear until he accepts?

Before you know it, you’re pacing back and forth in front of the door, mumbling to yourself in a now panic-stricken state.

Seriously, where would you go if he doesn’t want you back? You don’t think you could ever find someone that understands you like he does. But if he decided to just walk away from you while you were on one fucking knee like that, you’d be pretty mad too…

You halt with widened eyes when you hear a crash behind the door. Your thoughts are immediately thrown out the window as your protective nature wins out over your consternation and you allow yourself to hastily unlock the door yourself and kick it open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Jade and John's an idiot.
> 
> I hope you're as excited for the last chapter as I am!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave wallows in self-pity and John pays him a visit.

Your name is Dave Strider and—

“Rooose. Rose. You don’t. You just don’t get it. You don’t understaaand. I just. Why. What happened? Like. I thought everything was okay, you know?”

You vaguely feel like you should stop talking because you are slurring your words like a complete tool, but fuck that, you are tipsy and overflowing with emotions that you need to release right the fuck now. Which is why you are currently on the phone with your lovely, patient sister, who will surely talk you through this difficult time.

“Dave. I understand this is a hard time for you, but you have done little more than repeat the same phrases and questions verbatim for the past hour. Please contact me again when you are capable of continuing an actual conversa—”

You hang up the phone before she can finish her sentence. That’ll show her not to leave her darling, innocent brother in his time of need.

As you stash your phone in your back pocket, you begin to process just how quiet your surroundings are.

How big the apartment is.

How absolutely _wrong_ it all feels.

You get up from your seat in the kitchen, grab the nearest half-empty bottle of liquor from among the collection you’ve formed, and shuffle to your bedroom, pledging to finish drinking your way into a fucking coma.

But then you throw yourself onto your bed and catch John’s scent on the pillow and nope, let’s just sit right the hell back up.

You down some more alcohol, wipe your mouth off with your sleeve, and sigh.

John’s really gone.

It sounds so cliché, but you were convinced that everything was perfectly fine. You were _so sure_ John would’ve been as ecstatic about this as you were. But you obviously fucked something up along the line to make him just walk away like that. You don’t even know if he’s coming back and it pisses you off that you didn’t notice that he was pretty much done with you sooner.

You finish up your liquor and throw the bottle across the room in frustration, watching as the glass shatters across the carpet and sparkles in the dim light. You might be crying again, but you can’t feel much of anything other than utter resentment at yourself for letting this happen. You flop onto the floor and allow your eyes to slide shut, hoping that sleep will overcome you soon enough.

“Dave, are you okay?” You hear John’s hesitant voice outside your room.

God dammit.

“Dave, where are – Dave, why are you on the floor.”

Your eyes are wide now, but your face is still pressed against the carpet and you refuse to get up because you are confused as all hell right now. What is even going on, why is John here? Oh right, you remind yourself harshly, he could very well be here to collect his things before he leaves again. You’re really not up for that second helping of emotional trauma right now. You stay put as you hear him shuffle around.

“Dave.” His voice is so close now, you can almost feel his breath on the back of your neck and you find yourself holding your own, not daring to even move.

He pokes your side and you spasm. That was a dirty move, you think at him as you curl up and onto your side, facing away from his general direction.

 “Oh my god, I know you can hear me, Dave. Can we talk?”

“Why, you know where your shit is go get it.” you mumble. Or, try to mumble. You’re pretty sure it just came out as “whnoweregetter”.

He lets out a frustrated sigh, grabs your wrist, and –what the fuck no what is he doing – yanks you toward him. You gasp indignantly, involuntarily sliding across the floor on your back with your limbs flailing.

You quickly gain control of your body again as you sit up with your legs crossed, folding your arms across your chest, and glare at the man sitting with his legs out in front of you.

“Are you really pouting at me right now.”

“I’m not pouting.” You’re definitely pouting.

“Dave, I’m sorry.” There’s that fucking look of concern from earlier. You’re beginning to hate that look.

You take a deep breath. The alcohol’s starting to wear off so you consciously remind yourself not to switch back to butthurt pansy mode again.

“You don’t have to be, bro. Heh, you should’ve told me earlier if you didn’t want to be with me, I mean it would’ve saved us both some ti—”

You freeze mid-sentence because John has just pulled out like five hundred roses from behind his back and presented them to you.

You take them, place them in the hole between your legs, and continue. “Um. Thanks. But seriously dude, do you want to grab your things and go, or should I? I’m sure Rose would let me stay wi—oh what the fuck.”

And now there’s a heart-shaped box of chocolates being insistently pushed into your grip. What the hell, he isn’t allowed to be sweet to you when he’s about to break your heart for the second time.

“John, people don’t give ‘sorry-for-breaking-up-with-you’ gifts. This isn’t a thing you do.”

He rolls his eyes at you like _you’re_ the moron here.

He gets up and you just raise an eyebrow at him, silently daring him to do whatever the hell he’s trying to do. But apparently his plan involves you too because he lifts you up via his hands in your armpits (“dude what the fuck I’m not an overgrown child”) and places you on your feet in front of him, ignoring the scattered roses on the floor. You cross your arms again, still feeling like a spoiled brat because _why_ is he still here!? You need him to go. You need time alone, you can’t deal with this right now. You don’t know why he’s here, but it can wait until tomorrow or next week or next month because you just really need some sort of break after your recent humiliation.

You try to tell him this. “John, listen. I need time t--” He cuts you off for the third fucking time tonight, but you don’t really give a shit right now because John has really just grabbed one of your hands and dropped down onto one of his knees what.

“Dave.”

“Oh my god.” Your heart has picked up again and you’re slightly light-headed and oops, there goes your thought process.

“I’m sorry for earlier. This sounds really stupid, but I guess I was overwhelmed and kind of… ran away. But!” He punctuates the syllable with a tap to your ring finger. “That definitely wasn’t a ‘no.’”

“Oh my fucking god.”

“I’m really, really sorry. I never meant to hurt you, Dave. And I love you so, so much.” He’s looking at you with a look of pure intensity now and you think you stopped breathing a couple of minutes ago.

You’re covering your mouth with your free hand like a swooning school girl.

“I don’t know if I can make this better, but I’m definitely up for getting married.”

You’re actually at a loss for words.

“Um, if you still want to, I mean,” he tacks on.

Come on, Strider, you’re smooth. You’re cool. You’re a master with words.

“Uff,” you say intelligently.

He just keeps staring up at you with hopeful eyes and you realize that his hands are actually _shaking_ , he might just be as nervous as you were earlier.

Holy shit, he’s actually adorable.

You drop to your knees and throw your arms around John’s neck. You feel him hesitate before he returns your embrace with equal strength.

“Of course.” You choke on your words and you’re crying yet again and congrats Strider, you are literally the biggest wuss on the face of the planet.

“Dave, I’m sorry,” he whispers, almost scared, into your ear.

“I know.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” You squeeze him tighter and sniffle pathetically into his shoulder as you rub his back.

“I cheated on you with your sister.”

Your movements stop.

“That was a joke you gullible piece of shit.”

You slap the back of his head. He laughs and you push him back just enough to shut him up by kissing him, with longing and passion so deep, Twilight moms would faint at the sheer sap emanating from you.

As you feel his hands reaching up to run through your hair, you find yourself smiling so widely, it pretty much just ruins sexy kissing time, so you just rest your forehead against his. He asks why you’re so smiley and you just say you’re thinking about your future children, Ty Lee and Pon Pon Wei. He laughs heartily and when you’re both quiet, he slowly rocks you back and forth like you’re the most fragile thing in the universe.

You wonder if you can get him to let you wear a dress to your wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate all the kudos and nice comments.<3
> 
> You can like/reblog/whatever this on tumblr too, I made a writing blog: http://daveeggbert.tumblr.com/
> 
> Should I follow this up with some porn hmmm.


End file.
